Price of Pizza Increasing....... Why?

Gas prices have been going up, food at the grocery doing the same, and now............... even pizza prices are jumping. What is going on? Read this article to find out why.

When Did March Madness Begin?

I can't get classes to stop talking about it, so we might as well make it an economics article. How did March Madness Become Such a BIG event?

Ever Wonder About the History of Easter Candy?

Ever wonder about the history of Easter candy?

Click To See The National Debt

Well what do you think? Should we worry about the National Debt or should we ignore it? According to http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/, each citizen's share of this debt is........... oh heck, you click on the title and see. Sooooooo many numbers.

Why So Many Reality Television Shows?

Economist Austan Goolsbee has an article in the NY Times that looks at the economics of reality shows. He starts with a question of why there are so many reality shows (in particular, shows like American Idol), and comes up with the following initial answer:

Some say it’s just that people now lack the attention span for old-style television or that our tastes have changed.
Most insiders point out that reality shows cost much less to make than scripted shows, and, they argue, this is just a profit play by the broadcast networks.

However, he astutely points out that if reality shows are popular because they are cheap to make, why weren't they popular 20 years ago. As Goolsbee says, "Surely the broadcast networks wanted to save money back then, too."

Goolsbee then cites Harvard economist Richard Caves, who comes up with the explanation that reality shows are popular because there are so many TV choices with the proliferation of cable and satellite:
He points out that such incentives depend on the size of the potential market. The programming is a fixed cost — networks pay for the programs even if nobody watches. If paying an extra $1 million to get a star onto a show, for example, raises every customer’s love of the show by the equivalent of $1, the investment more than pays off if there are 10 million potential viewers. But the $1 million investment would be a terrible flop if there were 10,000 potential viewers.
So the increase in reality programming is not just a matter of broadcasters wanting to save money. It’s that a shrinking potential market gives the networks less incentive to spend money. They can’t recoup it with enough viewers.
Any opinions on this question of reality show popularity?

(Source: Marginal Revolution)

Fascinating Predictions from 1900 about the year 2000

Here are a few of the most interesting to me:

Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated.
Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence.
There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary.
There will be no wild animals except in menageries.
Those are some of the ones that sound ridiculous, but there are actually plenty of others that sound familiar. For instance:
Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today.
Any that you find particularly interesting? Be sure to explain why.

Utterly Crazy in Ohio?

Households Must Learn To Budget

Post World War II Recessions

Was the Iraq War Fought For Big Oil?

Time For The Bear